Adventures in Spontaneity

Flash Mob: a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. (source: Wikipedia)

While searching the internet one day to look at footage of "No Pants on the T" Day, I came across the page of the Boston Society of Spontaneity. Come to find out, they've done numerous "flash mob" events in the Boston area in the last few years. I noticed on their calendar, they were having an event on March 6 but only those who sign up on the site would get the super secret information about when and where to show up. So... I signed up because I've always wanted to do one of these things.

In the meantime, the Meetup.com group I belong to, Nerd Fun Boston, sent out an event notification that they were going to participate in this super secret spontaneous event. So, I made plans to meet that group a few minutes prior to the event so I wouldn't be "alone".

Disclaimer: Call me crazy or whatever the hell you want, but being 30-something, with friends who have husbands and babies and other commitments and friends who live far away can really SUCK sometimes. So, what's a 30-something to do? Well, she finds other people who A) likes doing some weird stuff that she likes and B) actually has time to do that stuff and then goes and meets those people and get 'er done.

So, I got an email just before midnight on Friday telling me to show up at the Christian Science Center reflecting pool at 3:30 on Saturday. A hint was also given - a video of Monty Python's sketch on the Ministry of Silly Walks. Well, on Saturday, after touring UMass Lowell with Jeremy & Mom, I headed into Boston. Parked at Wellington Station and took the T into the Prudential. It's been a LONG time since I've taken the T, but thankfully it wasn't crowded on a saturday afternoon.

I met up with my Meetup group, who were all very nice. I particularly bonded with 2 girls...because we were "afraid" to do this thing alone. One was named Julia, and I can't remember the other girl's name (sorry!). I hope we meet at another meetup event soon.

Anyway, down to business...

We were told that we were going to go into the Prudential Mall for about 20 minutes and shop around doing a "silly walk" (watch the youtube video above, people...) The goal was to act as if this walk is totally normal and if people asked what was up, you had to come up with an excuse and not reveal the gag. I'd estimate that about 100 people showed up to do this. So the other 2 girls and I decided to walk around doing the walk from the opening of the Monkees TV show. We were in the mall walking and one guy links on to my arm and starts walking with us and he started singing the Monkees theme song. that was cool!

So, I guess the organizers went around with hidden cameras to get people's reactions and I'll post a link to that once it's posted. Some little kids at the mall started emulating other people's silly walks. It was cute to see. The mall was wicked croweded, though, which made walking 3-across with arms linked really difficult (and slow). So, I decided to start doing a chacha walk. I chacha'd back to our meeting place (crossed the street at a red light doing the chacha) and we regrouped and went to the Apple Store.

Apparently they did a gag at the Apple store before (they brought "banana phones") and got kicked out. I chacha'd up the stairs and around the place (checked out an i-phone, which was cheaper than I thought it would be) and one of the employees stopped me and asked what was up. I said, "what do you mean?" and he said, "why is everyone walking around crazy?" and I said, "I don't know about them, but I just synched to some new chacha music" and I chacha'd away. LOL

As luck would have it, I got out of the store before they started kicking people out, apparently for being too outrageous. A bunch of people from the "society" went out to the Pour House for drinks (wow... does that bring flash backs) but I decided to head home.

I'm now looking forward to some really large scale events they have planned for this summer. I hope they're happening on days that I'm free!